The video below doesn’t contain a narrative arc — it’s just a series of slice-of-life moments from a half-day cage-truck trip around the northern rim of Malekula Island, en route to the isolated Big Nambas village of Tenmaru. Rough as dirt track looks, it was the only through-road on that part of the island.
Buying passage on this truck was not cheap — Kiki and I paid the rough equivalent of two RT Bangkok-to-Chiang Mai air tickets — and one telling detail is that this truck-bed was empty when we first got in.
In remote Vanuatu, however, personal relationships are more important than the abstraction of money — and despite the fact that we’d paid him a lot to hire the truck, the driver simply couldn’t bring himself to ignore the various friends and family members he saw flagging us down as we went.
So it was that Kiki and I shared the truck’s cramped cage-bed with as many as 11 other people at a time — many of whom were clutching chickens, yams, children’s toys, rattan mats, and bundles of coconuts to bring back to their families.
It was a brilliantly sunny day on Malekula, as you can see, and despite the crowded, stomach-churning lurchiness of the ride, it was weirdly beautiful.
As we neared the outpost of Espigles Bay, where most of the others got out, the guy in the yellow shirt began to sing John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” and before long everyone in the truck — Kiki and me included — couldn’t help but sing along.
Note: “Dispatches” are short vignettes, profiles, and mini-essays written and posted from the road, often in tandem with my Instagram account. I don’t host a “comments” section, but I’m happy to hear your thoughts via my Contact page.
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